Parents & Families

For immediate help email PEFNC's Community Engagement Director at kwan@pefnc.org

Parental school choice represents a simple but powerful idea: parents should be empowered to decide which school best meets their child’s needs, regardless of their address or income. Parents might decide that a traditional public school, a public charter school, a private school, or even a home school is the best educational environment for their child. But the bottom line is that they, not someone else, get to make this choice.

North Carolina offers parents a range of traditional and non-traditional schooling options as well as three state-sponsored private school choice programs. In fact, nearly 350,000 students in North Carolina now attend non-traditional schools – either through public charter schools, private schools or home schools.

Here’s a look at the current K-12 landscape in North Carolina, by the numbers:

*Source: North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), NCDPI Office of Charter Schools, and North Carolina Division of Non-Public Education

Resources

PEFNC Parent Liaison Team: The Parent Liaison Team (PLT) is a project developed by Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina (PEFNC) to educate parents about the benefits of parental school choice. The PLT’s work encompasses local and one-to-one outreach to North Carolina parents of school-aged children.

Team members, who hail from regions all over the state, connect with parents across an array of platforms and venues to share information, stories, and PEFNC resources, and ultimately, to empower parents to utilize the state’s school choice programs. Fill out this form and a Parent Liaison will be in touch today! Meet the Parent Liaison Team here.

For more information about each program, including eligibility requirements and application deadlines, click on each program.

The Opportunity Scholarship Program provides low-income and working-class families with up to $4,200 for tuition at a private school. This scholarship levels the playing field for families who want something different than their traditional public school. To see if you may be eligible for the Opportunity Scholarship Program, visit SchoolChoiceNC.org.

TheChildren with Disabilities Grant, established in 2011, provides families with up to $8,000 for private school tuition or related services for their student with special needs. Homeschooled students may be eligible for this grant.

North Carolina’s new Special Needs Education Savings Accounts provide a family with up to $9,000 to use for educational services for their student with special needs—not just tuition but other costs associated with educating their child.

Stories

At PEFNC we want to help your stories for parental school choice success. Watch one of our latest videos, and if you'd like to share you story with us email info@pefnc.org today!

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